France defended its contact with the militant group on the basis that it needed to communicate with Hamas to assess the humanitarian and political conditions in the region. Kouchner furthered that other European countries do the same: “I think ... we’re not the only ones to have contacts of this type.”

U.S. State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said in response, “We don’t believe it is helpful to the process of bringing peace to the region.”

Considered a terrorist group by the United States, Hamas is the ruling political faction in Israel’s Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip. Hamas has always been steadfast in its refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, and Israeli blockades and closings of border crossings have characterized Israeli–Hamas relations as of late. Last month a breakdown in fuel transport prevented UN relief agencies working in Gaza to deliver food aid.

France’s announcement will not help its reputation as a country full of anti-Semitism. The International Herald Tribune reported in 2004 that Middle Eastern conflict is playing out much closer to Paris: “With the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada against Israel in 2000, anti-Semitic attacks in France skyrocketed.” Shouts of “dirty Jew” are not uncommon in Parisian suburbs. Synagogue administrator Daniel Haik told the Christian Science Monitor, “There is no future for Jews in France.”

The French government has since ramped up legislation and policing against anti-Semitic hate crimes. In 2006 then-Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin reaffirmed France’s commitment to protecting its Jewish citizens.

The issue came to light after retired French diplomat Yves Aubin de Messuziere said in French paper Le Figaro on Sunday that he had met with Hamas member and Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh as part of his work. De Messuziere told French paper Le Figaro that Hamas representatives “said they were ready to stop suicide attacks. … What surprised me is that the Islamist leaders recognize the legitimacy of Mahmoud Abbas,” the Palestinian president and leader of Fatah, Hamas’ rival group.

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter arrived in Israel on April 13 for a nine-day tour of the Middle East, but Israeli dignitaries snubbed his requests for meetings because of “scheduling problems”—and presumably the former president’s plans to meet with Hamas. Explained Carter: “I think there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that if Israel is ever going to find peace with … the Palestinians that Hamas will have to be included in the process.”

On March 4, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refused to resume peace talks with Israel after suspending Israeli–Palestinian peace negotiations. The move was in response to recent Israeli attacks in Gaza. Aimed at defending Israel from the rocket attacks coming from the region, the military strikes killed more than 100 Palestinians and three Israelis.

Palestinians and aid workers decried the Jan. 18 Israeli blockade at Gaza’s borders. Israeli officials claim Hamas exaggerates the hardship and turned the power off itself. Most of Gaza City was plunged into darkness the night of Jan. 20 after the strip’s only power plant shut down, allegedly because it ran out of fuel.

The Council on Foreign Relations calls Hamas “the largest and most influential Palestinian militant movement.” When Hamas won Palestinian elections in January 2006, Israel imposed economic sanctions on the Gaza Strip because of the group’s continued refusal to recognize Israel.

Hamas means “zeal” in Arabic. It is also an acronym for the group’s full Arabic name: “Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya,” the Islamic Resistance Movement. The group was founded in 1987 during the first Intifada. In its charter, drafted in 1988, Hamas terms the struggle for Palestine “a religious obligation, saying the land is an endowment that cannot be abandoned,” according to The New York Times.

Jeff Jacoby remembers in a 2004 Boston Globe editorial when former French President Jacques Chirac said in response to a Jewish editor, “There is no anti-Semitism in France.” Across Europe, there has been a wave of outwardly anti-Semitic comments and actions. Fans at a Belgium–Israel soccer match chanted, “Jews to the gas chambers!” and “Strangle the Jews!” A journalist wrote in a popular Greek newspaper that Jews “have vindicated the persecutions of the Nazis.” But Jacoby writes, “The hatred has been most palpable in France. There have been so many attacks on Jews in recent months that the chief rabbi has urged religious boys and men to wear baseball caps instead of yarmulkes outside their homes.”

“Jew” is a word commonly spray-painted across the exterior walls of Parisian suburbs, reported the International Herald Tribune on March 23, 2006. State education inspector general Jean-Pierre Obin said, “The minister of education has done nothing. “He prefers not to talk about it.” Obin wrote in a 2004 report that anti-Semitism in French schools is “ubiquitous.”

Until 2001, an average of 1,000 French Jews moved to Israel annually. But in 2004, three times that number were expected to make the move after growing anti-Semitic sentiment. Said Daniel Haik, a synagogue administrator in Sarcelles, a traditionally Jewish suburb of Paris, said, “There is no future for Jews in France. We suffered one ethnic cleansing when we were forced to leave Tunisia and we are on the verge of another.”

Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin spoke at a Nov. 12, 2006 dinner of the World Jewish Congress, outlining steps his government had taken to stem the tide of anti-Semitic acts in the country. “We are … strengthening legislation against racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic acts. … Judges have been specially designated in each prosecution department to follow racist and anti-Semitic cases. … We have obtained real results: in 2005 anti-Semitic acts fell by 47% compared with the previous year. The figures available today for 2006 confirm this downward trend,” he said.

The Gaza Strip is home to Palestinians who come mainly from refugee families. In 2005, Israel withdrew its troops and Israeli settlers from Gaza. The Strip is a stronghold of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in January 2006. Militants attack Israeli positions from the Strip, claiming a few lives. Israeli reprisals have killed large numbers of Palestinians.